flyingcrazy

I know of several city based businessman who regularly fly from LCY to the world via AMS and FRA in order to avoid missing out on the treck to LHR/LGW.

Is Air France missing a trick here by not cashing in on these people like LH and KL do?

carnarvon

You can add LGW/CDG on the missing route list.

JOUY31

I remember flying with BA from LGW to CDG a few years ago.

With AF on LCY-CDG, I think there was a daily flight more recently, but it was quickly discontinued.

orbitmic

Actually, for a short period of time it was even two daily flights, and then exactly as you say reverted to a single daily flight. I often flew that route at the time and flights were very often full but for some reason AF decided to discontinue it.

To the OP, to be honest, whatever time you were saving by not going to LHR you were wasting being taxied to remote stands near 2G and then bussed to the terminal for a very very long time. LCY also has the problem of being a 'fragile' airport - as soon as there is a bit of fog, everything becomes total chaos with everything being cancelled, while LHR might be disrupted by any form of bad weather but it results in delays rather than cancellations; plus the DLR is notoriously prone to breaking down in equally chaotic ways.

All in all, you could say that AF/WX have clearly 'given up' on being the dominant carrier at LCY, apparently happily leaving the spot for BA to take. I must say that after being a big fan of LCY for many years, too many incidents as described above mean that I am appreciating LHR more and more. Both T4 and T5 are actually very pleasant terminals and LHR is not nearly as chaotic now as it once was.

LGW is a different story, AF certainly has not flown from there to Paris since I have had my foot in London 11 years ago, although they did use to fly LGW-SXB (which then moved to LCY) and LGW-NTE (which then closed down before also reopening from LCY if I remember correctly). Now both routes have been entirely discontinued. My suspicion is that it was comparatively very expensive for AF to keep some operations that were so small out of LGW so preferred to stop flying from there. Most people also avoid LGW as it is not nearly as practical as LHR by public transport (there is basically only one train line going there, whether you go the Victoria way or the London Bridge way, if there is a problem on that track - as happened to me the other day when someone sadly jumped on the track) there is absolutely NO public transport alternative whatsoever - no other train route between London and LGW, no bus, and taxis are prohibitive (some people have been known to pay over £100 for a black cab from central London to LGW in average traffic, even mini cabs will typically be around £70 or more, which is often more than the cost of a plane ticket). By contrast, there are two and soon to be three rail/tube lines from central London to LHR, several bus routes, and a mini cab from central London to LHR is about £30 which is cheaper than a taxi from Paris to CDG.

So all in all, considering that traffic on the route has now significantly reduced on O/D traffic (I'm ashamed to say that even I now tend to take the Eurostar rather than the plane when going to Paris ), I would say that AF's choice to focus on LHR is probably the correct one, especially as the airport is continuously improving and Crossrail will give it yet a further huge advantage before long. I imagine that the next step would consist of having direct trains from St Pancras to CDG to directly poach passengers 'au nez et a la barbe' of BA

[sorry for the long answer but you tickled the Londoner in me! ]

flyingcrazy

Your post has been most interesting I thank you for it . I am a Heathrowphile myself and cannot understand all the bad press. I am not one of these people who fly from LCY via AMS, FRA etc just to avoid LHR because I like T5. Hopefully with the new aviation review we will see a 3rd or even 4th runway added to enable this great airport to compete better with the likes of CDG especially on flights to the Far East.
Of course LHR and LCY are much more convenient than LGW.

orbitmic

Ah ah, hello fellow Heathrowphile! Yes, 3rd and 4th runway would be great but I'm not sure how optimistic I am about it. The paradox for the current major party in the coalition is that they are both close to the no 1 constituency wanting it (big business) and to the no 1 constituency who will go totally ballistic if it happens (West London residents who don't want the extra traffic and represent a very predominantly Conservative area).

I guess that the bad press largely comes from the missing third runway precisely, meaning that LHR runs so near capacity that if there is any minor visibility or snow problem, everything gets delayed and people start "enjoying" the dreaded holding pattern for hours before missing their connection. I do think things have improved quite a bit though. ATC seem to have now developed slightly more efficient ways to handle traffic problems, and as you say T5 is very nice and has made connections hugely more practical and more pleasant than in the past. It has very good lounges too, notably GF. Bus boarding is also far rarer than at both FRA (where it seems to me to be getting worse if I judge by my recent trips) and CDG (where it seems to be getting better). So all in all, of the three largest airport hubs for EU largest airlines connections (BA at LHR, AF at CDG, and LH at FRA) I would now rank BA at LHR as the most efficient at the moment as long as we are talking T5-T5, which is most connections (anything T3 or T1 is a bit like having to use 2G at CDG, ie not good).

Still, I do think that a St Pancras-CDG would be a good idea for AF to collaborate on. I think they have managed to get a lot of Belgian traffic with their Bxl Gare du Sud-CDG and I have no doubt they would similarly increase their market share with a direct train into CDG.

NickB

Yes. Flying from LCY in a winter is a bit of a gamble and I tend to avoid it for that reason too. It does serve its purpose though and when it works, which is most of the time, it normally works well. I have a tendency to fly out of LHR and into LCY, partly because I can usually cope with delays in that direction more easily than in the other one and also because I enjoy the T5 GC lounge (BA) or the T4 ST lounge (AF/KL/AZ). I certainly think twice before flying from LCY in the winter (I tended to avoid Milan airports for the same reason when the old AZ still had numerous services from them).

stut

IIRC, there used to be a twice-daily LCY-CDG return, timed for connections. I used to take it occasionally, but the loads were always pretty poor - I would assume most of the traffic is point-to-point on this city pair (or that the parallel BA flight - at the time - poached a number of passengers). It always seemed that point-to-point travel was actively discouraged on these flights, however, with LCY-CDG fares below Y often completely blanked out.

(Wasn't there also one of the LCY-ORY flights that was C-only?)

I too would welcome a St Pancras to CDG service. It's frustrating that there's already a service that uses the next stop down the line, too!

JOUY31

Before the crisis, the two early morning flights from ORY to LCY used to be completely full, and yes, they were most of the time C-only, but with no empty middle seat, and a fare usually 50 EUR to 100 EUR higher for the round trip than flights in C, full-fare, from CDG to LHR. These were good times for AF at LCY ^.

orbitmic

Very clever! ^ And I agree with you, when things work, LCY is great - I love the small airport feeling, I love walking to the planes, security is usually decently fast and immigration mostly super fast as is luggage delivery which can easily take 15 minutes less than at LHR.

And as you say, MXP and FLR are also danger spots weather (and particularly fog-wise)

delanotre

I agree... but LCY just need a lounge for ST members.

yno

LCY itself is a big lounge ;-)

NickB

LCY has no lounge for any airline. This just is not how LCY is designed. The only thing remotely resembling a lounge is a table set up in the gate area for the BA departures to JFK with a few drinks and nibbles. That is it.

A long time ago, KL had a lounge of sorts at LCY: it consisted of an empty room near the entrance to the building with some chairs and a phone. The phone connected you to the bar, where you could order a (free) drink from and they would bring it to you. The room made a 1950s dentist waiting room look positively vibrant in comparison (although I am not sure that vibrant would be a positive quality for a dentist waiting room ). That room disappeared when LCY was renovated.

Nugget_Oz

AF may be but with KL in on it why cannibalise it's share. With AMS probably being a superior connector it may be that AF has decided to leave the LCY connector flights to KL whilst concentrating on CDG for longer haul connection.

As an aside I looked at doing the LCY thing over St. Pancras but decided that all in all there was less hassle using the train.

ajamieson

Spot on. LCY is down the road but I still depart from LHR whenever possible in winter. When LCY works, it's great - when it doesn't, it's awful.

As for the routes, I suppose AF is going for a strategy of connecting the local, convenient airports preferred by point-to-point traffic and connecting the hubs, but not connecting across the two airport types. I suppose they must know what they're doing